


From My Mother, and Her Mother Before Her

by Plumcot



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Fluff, Gen, Sewing, Steve Rogers & Tony Stark Friendship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-18
Updated: 2016-11-18
Packaged: 2018-08-31 18:14:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,537
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8588707
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Plumcot/pseuds/Plumcot
Summary: Tony doesn't know how to sew. He doesn't have to; if he ever rips something he can just throw it out and buy a new one. Perks of being rich.Predictably, the idea of throwing out a perfectly good shirt just because of a little tear gives Steve a mini heart attack.





	

**Author's Note:**

> I don't think this is the kind of thing you're supposed to post for no-shame November, but screw it

“What are you _doing?”_

Tony paused with the shirt poised over the trash can. “Uh…”

Steve marched over and took the shirt from his hands. “This is a perfectly good shirt!”

“No, it’s ripped, see?” Tony took the shirt back and showed him the ripped seam along the armpit. 

“So you’re just going to throw it away?” Steve gave him an incredulous look. In a way, Tony felt a little proud; when Steve first defrosted, he’d made that look at everything from cell phones to the price of coffee, but after a while he got used to the 21st century, and stuff had stopped fazing him. They hadn’t seen that look in a long time. It was nice to know that Tony was the first thing in about a year to prompt Steve’s “The Future is a Confusing and Horrific Place” routine.

“Oh, I get it.” Tony said. “This is another ‘grew up in the Depression’ culture difference, isn’t it? Well don’t you worry your pretty little head, I have enough money to buy and throw away about a thousand of these without making a dent in my wallet, so-” 

He dropped the shirt over the trashcan, and Steve snatched it out of the air. “This isn’t just about money, it’s about common sense!” He fiddled with the shirt until he found the rip. “Look at this, you could fix this in five seconds!”

“Ugh, fine, I’ll drop it off at a tailor’s if it’ll make you happy!”

“And pay someone a fortune for something you could do yourself?” 

“I don’t know what you think a fortune is, Cap, but a tailor’s fee isn’t it.”

Steve squinted, and stared at Tony for a second.

Tony shifted under his gaze. “Are you looking into my soul? Because if you are, that’s a serious breach of privacy, and frankly I-”

“Do you _know_ how to sew?”

Tony raised his eyebrow. “I want you to picture little baby Tony growing up in a mansion and drinking out of gilded baby bottles, and then ask me that question again.”

“Well, when you say it like that…” Steve muttered. “Really? Not at all?”

Tony shrugged. “Never needed to.”

Steve sighed. He glanced at the shirt. Then he walked away, with the shirt still in his hands.

“Gee, Tony,” Tony said, in his most ridiculous impression of Steve, “I’d love to have the shirt, I’m so glad I asked politely for it!” 

“You were just about to throw it away!”

“It’s the principle of the thing!”

“I’m going to _fix it_ and give it back to you. Won’t take five minutes.” With that, Steve left the room. 

“Said five _seconds,_ the first time…” Tony muttered. 

... 

After that, Tony went back to his workshop and largely forgot about the whole thing. Until JARVIS announced Steve’s arrival, and the man himself marched into the workshop, carrying the shirt and looking a little too happy with himself.

Tony wheeled out from underneath the belly of his latest project and walked over to him. “That was fast. I don’t pay for slapdash work, Capsicle.”

“You’re not paying me at all. And trust me, it isn’t slapdash.” He put the shirt on the table and nodded towards it.

Tony picked up the shirt and examined the seam. Then he frowned, because he was sure it was the left armpit that was broken, not the right. He checked the other seam, and nope, they looked exactly identical, what the Hell. He narrowed his eyes and compared them side by side.

“It was the left one.” Steve said.

“I knew that.” Tony put the shirt down. “Well thanks, Cap, I’ll call you next time I need to save a ridiculously small amount of money.”

Steve snorted. “You know where to find me.” He walked out of the workshop.

...

Two weeks later, Tony was kneeling in his workshop adjusting a few screws, when DUM-E rolled up beside him. He didn’t think much about it until tried to stand up but something held his leg down, and he stumbled forward and heard a great, dramatic, ripping noise. He looked down to find a great big hole ripped in the cuff of his jeans, part of the fabric still caught under DUM-E’s wheel. 

“Oh, COME ON!”

DUM-E lowered his appendage-thing and rolled away sadly. 

“I swear, I will _melt you down and turn you into a toaster oven!”_ Tony shouted after him. He peered at his ankle. He wasn’t above wearing artfully ripped jeans, but this wasn’t artful; this was just sad, and probably a workplace hazard. He huffed and stripped out of the pants, intending to throw them out on his way up to change into a new pair.

But then he stopped. He thought of Steve’s fit over the shirt the other week. And sure, Steve would never know if he threw away a pair of jeans in his private time, but… it felt kind of nice to humor the old man. And besides, these were his favorite jeans.

“JARVIS, where’s Steve?”

“In the common room, Sir.”

Tony went down to the common room and found Steve on the couch, doing something on his phone. “Can you fix this?”

Steve looked up from his phone, and his eyes widened. “You’re in your underwear.”

“Yeah, because my pants are broken, can you fix them?” He held the jeans out.

Steve took the pants and examined the cuff. “Well… it’s not along a seam, so it won’t be as pretty as the shirt. But yeah, I can fix it.”

“Cool, go nuts.”

Steve raised an eyebrow. “You just assume that I want to spend my free time fixing your clothes?”

“What are you doing right now.”

“…Reading an article about the world’s biggest turnip.”

Tony raised his eyebrows.

“Fine, fine, I’ll fix it.” Steve put the phone in his pocket and walked away with the pants.

When the pants came back, they were almost good as new. Unlike the shirt, Tony could tell where they had been ripped, but only because he was looking for it. The untrained eye would see nothing more than a good pair of jeans. “Not bad.” He nodded appreciatively. 

“Thanks.” Steve smiled. “It’s really just basic skills, though. You could probably pick it up in about, oh, two seconds?”

“I see what you’re doing, and it won’t work. Thanks for the pants, though.” Tony raised the pants like a cup to a toast, then walked back to the workshop.

...

After that, it just sort of kept happening. Tony would break something – sometimes just from normal wear and tear, most of the time from workshop accidents – and he would take it down to Steve, and Steve would look exasperated but glad for the work, and Tony would get it back good as new. Then Steve would rib him about not being able to fix it himself and Tony would snark back something about having people for that kind of thing, and that was that.

...

Then, one day, Steve was gone. Not gone as in _gone,_ gone as in flown off to Washington to do public relations things. This wouldn’t be such a big deal, except on the day Steve was gone, Tony just happened to rip his favorite tank top.

“Dammit!” Tony hissed, holding the fabric in his hands. He’d been lying on the floor underneath a project, and when he rolled out, a sharp bit had caught on the top. It was ripped from the middle, all the way down to the hem. 

His first thought was to give it to Steve, but then he remembered Steve wasn’t even in the state. He briefly entertained the idea of flying to Washington just to get Steve to fix his shirt, but that was a little too Tony Stark, even for Tony Stark. 

“JARVIS?” He called, “Do we have any sewing supplies?” 

“Only the kit in Captain Rogers’ room, sir.”

“Okay, where’s the nearest sewing supply store?”

JARVIS gave him some directions, and Tony hopped into one of his cars and drove off. 

The staff was very surprised to find Tony Stark in their store, buying needles and thread. After getting what he needed, taking a few selfies, and signing a few autographs, Tony arrived back in the tower with – he hoped – everything he needed. He grabbed the shirt and sat down on the couch, arranging the supplies on the coffee table. 

“How hard can it be…” He muttered to himself. 

Step one, threading the needle, went A-Okay. Then he poked the needle through the shirt and pulled it through, and it just slid all the way out. Tony grumbled and knotted the end of the thread. Then he tried pulling the needle through again, and it still came right back out. “What the hell?”

“Would you like me to play a tutorial, sir?” JARVIS said.

“Fine, bring something up.”

A screen appeared in the air in front of him, playing a video of a young woman on a pastel background explaining how to sew in very simple terms. Turned out Tony couldn’t even tie a knot right. 

It took about half an hour of sewing very slowly, pausing and unpausing the video, and in the end he had managed to give the shirt a long, ugly, uneven scar. 

He gritted his teeth and pulled in a long, slow breath. He really wanted to just rip the shirt to pieces. But instead he got up, stuffed the sewing supplies into a deep dark corner in his room, and shoved the shirt to the very back of his dresser drawer. 

...

Steve came back a week later. Tony asked him how it went, and listened as Steve regaled him with tales of kissing babies and being asked to sign underwear. The whole story was very boring and Tony was contemplating just walking away and getting a snack, but then Steve said,

“Oh yeah, and my shirt broke. Someone asked me to flex for the camera, and, well…” he laughed. “But I had my emergency sewing kit on me, so I fixed it when I got back to the hotel.” He ran his finger up and down his sleeve, indicating that yes, this was the very shirt he was talking about, even though it was impossible to tell it had broken in the first place.

“Oh, come on!” Tony threw his hand up. “You’re fucking with me, there’s no way that story’s true!”

“Uhh…” Steve blinked.

“Sir, if I may.” A holographic screen popped up in the air in front of them, playing news footage of the exact moment Steve ripped the shirt, prompting laughter from the crowd.

Tony waved the screen away. “Okay, okay, I get it! So you bought a new one, right? Because that,” he gestured to Steve’s sleeve, “is _not_ a broken shirt!”

“…No, it isn’t.” Steve said, slowly. “Because I fixed it.”

_“How!?”_

Steve smirked. “Tony. Do you want to learn how to sew.”

“…Yes.”

“Follow me.”

...

Tony followed Steve up to his floor. He found himself excited, not just because he was about to learn the ancient ways of needle and thread, but because Steve almost never let anyone who wasn’t Natasha into his floor, and this would be the first time Tony had seen it since he handed Steve the proverbial keys.

It was a little disappointing.

“Christ, how much beige does one man need?” Tony said, looking around the living room. It was so… simplistic. It looked more like a hotel lobby than a living space.

“It’s a simple color.” 

“Sure, but is it really worth _this?"_ Tony gestured to the room at large.

Steve ignored him and ducked into his bedroom. He came out with a wicker basket full of surprisingly-modern sewing supplies. Tony didn’t know what he was expecting; needles made of bone? Threads made of treated tendons?

Steve sat down on the couch, and Tony sat down next to him. Steve produced two scraps of fabric, a pincushion, scissors, and some thread. “Let’s start with running stitch.”

In just two hours, Tony was an old pro. He felt ready to fix a shirt; hell, he felt ready to sew a damn full-scale model of the Iron Man suit. 

“I think you’re done!” Steve smiled. “I’ve taught you everything I know; now all you need is practice.”

Tony grinned. “Maybe you can start giving me your shirts?”

Steve lifted his eyebrows. “Uh… I think I’ll stick to fixing them myself, thank you.” 

“What, you don’t have faith in me?”

“It’s not that- I mean-”

“Relax, I get it, I’m the newbie.” Tony picked up the tiny pillow he’d made for his last lesson. Some of the stitches were visible from the outside if you squinted, but all in all he was pretty proud of it. “Where’d you learn this stuff, anyway?”

“My Ma.” Steve said. He sighed and leaned back. “You were right, it is kind of a Depression thing. Back then, the idea of just throwing something out when it got a little beat up…” He shook his head. “It was unthinkable. Use it up, wear it out, make do or do without.”

Tony nodded. “Yeah, I’ve heard that one.” 

“Right. So sewing was a valuable skill, and my Ma made sure to teach me as soon as I was old enough. It was a great survival skill, but after she passed, it was also a way to stay close to her. I love sewing now. It almost feels like she’s still here with me, telling me to ‘use a thimble, for goodness sake, you lose enough blood picking fights as it is!’” He laughed.

“She sounds like a great woman.” Tony said.

“She was.” Steve smiled down at the ground. “She really was.”

There was a moment of silence.

Then Tony said, “So does this make you my mom?”

Steve laughed and stood up. “We – ha – we should clean this up.” He started putting things back into the basket.

“Honorary mom?”

...

The thing about getting in the Iron Man suit while already wearing a dress suit, was that the suit – the Iron Man suit – was really meant to be worn with form-fitting garments. Not bulky, dressy outfits that caught on things and inhibited movement. At some point while flying around New York shooting at slime creatures, Tony’s sleeve got caught on something, and he had to jerk it free.  
He mostly forgot about it until the battle was over. He slumped into the common-room couch, ready to fall asleep right then and there, when Clint said;

“What happened to your jacket, Stark?”

Tony looked up at Clint. Then he looked down at his jacket to find the sleeve almost completely detached at the shoulder. “Fuck.” 

“Oh no,” Natasha deadpanned, clutching her bandaged arm, “your poor jacket.”

“Yeah, yeah, children starving in China, I get it.” Tony mumbled. He pulled off the jacket. Then he reached into his pocket, pulled out his tiny emergency sewing kit and got to work.

“Uh.” Clint stared. “Are you guys seeing what I’m seeing?”

“Since when do you know how to sew?” Bruce asked.

Tony finished pulling the knot on the thread. “My mom taught me.”

Nobody understood why Steve burst out laughing across the room.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm on [ Tumblr! ](http://master-of-pocket-worlds.tumblr.com/)


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